History of Block City Wars through the eyes of the Veterans
Jac Sanchez: first logged on in September 2014, continues playing to this day. Ver. 4.0.3, The Roofs Update “Before the Golden Age” I first logged onto Block City Wars shortly after my father had a seizure, probably the very first one I’ve ever directly seen. To pass the time while he recovered in the hospital, and to keep my mind off of the idea of my father in pain somehow, I went to see what Block City Wars was all about after seeing the app several times while going around in the AppStore. I logged into it and it was obvious from the cover of the app that it tried to emulate some of Grand Theft Auto’s gameplay with Minecraft’s graphics. I spent some time in single player, getting the lay of the land, testing the game’s mechanics and admiring its model animation despite being an independently made game on the AppStore. I went to go see Pvp mode first and it was actually pretty simple, fair, and fun. Of course, this was the first and last time I’ve ever asked for a team in a free-for-all mode, seeing as there was no team battle mode at the time. After tirelessly taking out a few other players with bare and basic weapons, while getting taken out just as many times, I figured I would take a look at what was known as sandbox mode, and it was just a Pvp mode in the single player map. Not that I was complaining. While I played, it was balatantly obvious that the players were more active and open to communication there than they were in Pvp mode. Most players did treat sandbox mode as a hardcore, high-stakes Pvp game, to some other players’ discomfort and annoyance. Most attacks and kills came suddenly and, by my standards, cowardly, especially from the higher-ups that shared the servers with us. This was around the time that I decided that each and every player should be treated fairly, and where my idealism of “your gear and reputation don’t define your skill” really shined, and nobody tested this idealism harder than a certain bully-ish, self-proclaimed “best player on the leaderboard”, 2Good. This was a time when the railgun and the max heavy armor made the toughest arsenal any player could have. This was shortly after I logged on, too, so my weapons were at a bare minimum, with my toughest weapon being a baseball bat. 2Good totaled me the first few times he and I saw each other, and during the next three days, I was ready to get some payback. Not just for me, but for all the other low-ranking players he’s tossed around and bullied before I showed up. The next day, I got myself psyched up to see 2Good again. Once he logged onto the server I was in, he and I began fighting again. It was all one-sided for about a minute, and I had to develop a new strategy. If strafing and firing weren’t gonna work well on 2Good, I figured out a fighting style that did, and it was apparently unheard of by many people in the BCW community, especially 2Good. I got my baseball bat, and I began doing what I call “dancing”, which is continually moving in unpredictable patterns and directions, with the only consistent movement being directed to the target. Doing this, I essentially dodged what might as well have been every projectile fired in my direction and took 2Good out with a baseball bat. The “best player on the board” taken out by a kid who only started playing the game a a few days ago. This went on for a few minutes, the rounds continually ended with a dark blue “Jack” above a green “2Good“, and he finally decided to leave out of what I would like to say is frustration, but he spouted phrases that pretty much always said that he was going easy on me, or that he really beat me. I got a few players from that incident on my side after that, and I slowly established a new rule among the community, ‘just because you have fancy gear doesn’t mean you’re the best in the game’, and ‘attacking a player with no justified reasons has consequences.’ and this was around a time where many players were mature enough to listen to and understand good reasoning and proper justice, and I began to notice that the more I brought those rules up, the more people would restrict their fights to sport or have a reason for attacking a player, and more people in the community got along and even bonded. And on occasion I’d run into some tougher players who also were pretty mature and understanding, and I managed to bond with them as well, after testing our skills against each other. Most notably, a player named Ryuzaki {L} and one we’re all familiar with, Strong Man, A. K. A. Superior Pro. Each time a chaotic high-ranking player showed up, I’d deal with them, one way or another. 4.1, The Dual-Airship Update “The Golden Age Begins” After making new friends, and letting L and another player named Muffin_Man tag along, ended up running into a girl who was a relatively new player, known as Skylar, with a light-blue color to her name. She was pretty innocent and kind, but she wasn’t exactly always able to take care of herself in-game, so she had a few friends of hers show her around, one person I can remember was a guy named Cameron. I figured I’d show her around, too, while occasionally keeping certain attackers away. Then came Swat #2, possibly the most chaotic player I’ve seen at the time. I figured I’d get myself used to aerial combat, seeing as Swat himself was a bit of an airstriker, wielding both a railgun to deal with other aerial targets like helicopters or other airborne players like me, and a destroyer for on-ground targets. I didn’t care at all if I was getting picked off if it meant the players I was protecting got to avoid the chaos entirely. Swat began spattering random insults to all of us that I either didn’t pay attention to or just don't remember, and in response to it, Skylar decided to vocally defend us and state openly why swat is wrong about us. Swat seemed to have been amused by it because he believed that Skylar was out of her mind in saying so, even though Swat had a worse idea of who I was than Skylar did. As time went on, me and the others drove him out of the server, and that was the last I saw of him for several months. With peace becoming more and more frequent, and having more peacemakers at my side, I figured I would gradually improve my arsenal as time went on, to keep up with the players that are progressing as well, low and high ranks alike. My first step in doing so was buying a katana to replace my bat, in the possible contingency that my opponents will survive my melee vs ranged combat strategy, and with the improving arsenal, sharpening combat strategy, and growing alliance, I quietly formed a peacekeeping organization known as the Thunderbirds, which would come to be known as the silent but still surprisingly prominent Block City Warriors later in the future. Around the time of forming the group, the first gang/clan I noticed that began popping up was called “claw”, which, from my perspective, had very unclear objectives as to what it should do, what it was made for, and what everyone else was supposed to think about it, though most people in the gang were the ridiculous and more chaotic players we intended to rehabilitate or eliminate. Their legacy didn’t last much longer than possibly a month and a half, as the leader apparently quit the game, and as a result, the clan was disbanded and its members were scattered. 4.2, The 2015 Christmas Update - 4.2.5, The FPS Update “The Climax of the Golden Age” Skylar and I said our goodbyes, more people appeared to me to join the Thunderbirds, and players celebrated the time of the upcoming holiday as well as praised the changes to the game, chaotic and cruel high-rankers that couldn’t be rehabilitated became outcasts, mature high-rankers were supported and worshipped, and low-rankers were guided through a great and prosperous era in all the days that BCW has been around ever since its creation, and this was the peak of the BCW community. Fights were reserved to friendly competitions, players bonded and celebrated together, and on came the mass-discovery of the ice castle, a new addition to Block City’s map, and seeing it wasn’t just a short moment, it was a celebration all on its own, and many new things were being discovered about it as well. Almost no tangible chaos or destruction ever occurred or even started, there was nothing but peace, pure hearts, happiness, and prosperity, something that the BCW community may possibly never get back again, but it was good to have while we could. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” ~Dr. Seuss 4.3, The Golden Armor Update - 6.4, The Extra Mode Update “The End of the Golden Age” After the snow stopped falling, after Tony Blockshot turned white, and after the sun rose, it seems like all of BCW’s best redeeming qualities slowly began to disappear. Old friends permanently logged off, veterans became scarce, and chaos began to grow more and more. Newer players began popping up with as much attitude and as little respect as possible. What an unfortunate time to start a YouTube channel when there were so much good memories in the community to capture. An old nemesis finally showed up with his friend, Ant-Man351 to contribute to the growing chaos, and specifically to irritate people like me. He began to have a need for me as I was one of the few people at the time who were able to record the BCW community, but it only took a month for him to create his own channel and leech off of my popularity, while continuing to contribute to the chaos at the same time. I kept up with my let’s plays on a regular basis, only planning to become a basic run-of-the-mill let’s play channel. Apparently playing BCW and talking about it became a hot topic, since after Nascarfan and I unintentionally collaboratively created a foundation for the game, it quickly became a form of capitalism. I wished this was something good, at first. 6.4.5, The Rocket Ball MkII Update - 6.5.5, The Identity Crisis Update “The Decline Of Block City” With nothing but rumors and lies floating around about the clans that came about during this era after the clan war, the literal Block City War, I strode away from doing let’s plays of BCW, knowing that the community will only get worse and another update will never come again, and I changed my channel to a short film channel that satirized the BCW community, collectively and individually. There are hardly any veterans left now, nobody who remembers the Golden Age continues to play, nobody who truly knows the players, the clans, and the idealisms that kept BCW alive are around anymore. The only veterans that remain are the ones who stuck to YouTube, and even then, everything they’ve done will go completely forgotten. Now BCW is just an old, dying white dwarf when compared to the bright and glorious sun that it used to be. The Golden Age has passed, and with it, all of the community’s dignity. To any veterans that see this, be sure to add your memories of Block City Wars onto this page. From the day you first logged onto the game to the present day. Disclaimer: To be publicly classified as a BCW Veteran, you have to have joined the game around some time before the Golden Age Of BCW ended, which is an event that only true veterans can remember. Category:BlockCity __FORCETOC__